Actuel Festival
Zappa was a Master of Ceremonies (with Pierre Lattes) - at the Actuel Festival 24th-28th October 1969. The festival was organised by BYG Actuel, a French record label.
The five day, 24 hour, open air, festival was to be held at the Parc de Saint Cloud in Paris but the French authorities banned the festival a few days before it was due to start. The organisers moved the festival to Amougies in Belgium - a three hour drive east of Paris. Over 15,000 people attended the festival despite the seasonal cold, damp and fog.
"There were this group of people from Paris who put the shit on this festival, mainly because they were scared to death of having large numbers in that city. So these guys who wanted to put the festival on just refused to quit and they finally wound up choosing a cow pasture about two hours out of Brussels.
A lot of fog, and I guess it must have been twenty or thirty degrees out there, it was really miserable, a few tents and the people began to turn up from nowhere and they turned on the PA and that worked, and they turned on the lights and they worked, and the groups actually began to play and by God they had a pop festival.
And then they looked at it and realised that they had to keep on for five days. I was asked to join the festival. They first of all asked for the Mothers to play but there weren't any Mothers at that time, so Pierre Lattes, who I had known for some time, asked me to co-host the festival, but when I arrived there I found that most of the people spoke French and they wouldn't know what the fuck I was talking about so it was useless for me to introduce the groups.
So Pierre suggested that I might play with some of the groups. But I was at a great disadvantage because I didn't have my own guitar and I had to use other people's guitars and the amps that were around for everyone at the festival to use, and they kept blowing up and fucking up, and on top of that some of the groups found it a little difficult to relate to what I was playing. Cause, if you have a group that has certain arrangements and sets that they play every night, it's difficult to stick in an alien element that isn't part of the set up.
The audience and the reviewer forgot about those variables - perhaps seeming a little anxious to prove that I was a crappy guitar player".
DS: Alright. Here's a controversy you can settle. There are many people who think that you performed, in 1969, at a festival in Belgium called 'Amougies'...
FZ: Yes
DS: ... performed onstage with Pink Floyd. True or false?
FZ: Not with Pink Floyd.
DS: That's what I thought. You introduced Beefheart to the audience...
FZ: Yes, and I introduced a lot of other acts, too. You see, that was a very weird thing. I was hired to be a master of ceremonies...
DS: Gotcha.
FZ: That was after the Mothers had broken up, and y'know, I had time on my hands. These people contacted me. They offered me ten thousand dollars to be an emcee at a festival, all expenses paid, and go over there, and, y'know, whatever I wanted to do, and I said, "Fine." So, I get there, and they neglected to tell me that nobody spoke English. (laughter) I mean, most of the people there spoke French, and all I could do was point and wave, (laughter) and furthermore, the festival was originally supposed to be in France. The French government stopped it, and so, at the last minute, it was moved across the border into Belgium, into the middle of a turnip patch, in the middle of nowhere, in a tent that was held up by steel girders. This tent held fifteen thousand people. Freezing cold, damp weather, constant fog, the most MISERABLE (laughter) circumstances you could find yourself in, for three days, and it was a twenty-four-hour-a-day festival, and the kids would come there, and they had their sleeping bags, and they were sleeping through ... they were just in this tent FREEZING, laying on the ground, sleeping, while music went on around the clock with all these groups...
DS: How bizarre.
FZ: ... and they were filming it.
DS: A true war story.
RS: So, did you perform with anyone?
DS: Yeah. To nail that down once and for all, you did not perform with Pink Floyd, right?
FZ: No. I think I performed with Aynsley Dunbar, and then, there was a jam session that had Archie Shepp, 'Philly Joe' Jones, and some other jazz guys that played.
Recordings
Bootlegs from the festival include Zappa performing with:
- Aynsley Dunbar's Retaliation: Improvisation (7:08 - Oct 24th)
Victor Brox (vocals, harmonica); John Moorshead (guitar);
Alex Dmochowski (bass); Aynsley Dunbar (drums)
- Pink Floyd: Interstellar Overdrive (20:25 - Oct 25th)
David Gilmour (guitar); Richard Wright (organ);
Roger Waters (bass); Nick Mason (drums)
- Caravan: If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You (7:55 Oct 26th)
Pye Hastings (guitar & vocals); David Sinclair (keyboards);
Richard Sinclair (bass & vocals); Richard Coughlan (drums)
- Blossom Toes: Improvisation (26:10 Oct 26th)
Brian Godding (guitar, vocals & keyboards); Jim Cregan (guitar & vocals);
Brian Belshaw (bass & vocals); Kevin Westlake (drums)
- Sam Apple Pie: Moonlight Man (6:04 Oct 27th)
Sam Sampson (vocals & harmonica); Danny Barnes (lead guitar);
Andy Johnson (slide guitar); Bob Renny (bass & vocals); Lee Baxter Hayes Jr (drums)
Zappa can be heard introducing Captain Beefheart:
"Listen, be quiet and pay attention to this man's music. Because, if you don't you might miss something important - and we wouldn't want that to happen to you - because you need all the friends you can get..."
on Grow Fins: Rarities 1965-1982.
Films
Jérôme Laperrousaz and Jean-Noel Roy made a documentary during the festival called Music Power - European Music Revolution. Zappa can be seen playing with Archie Shepp, Captain Beefheart and Pink Floyd.
The Grow Fins: Rarities 1965-1982 set also includes two videos of Captain Beefheart's performance (with Zappa in the background).
Festival programme
Organised by BYG Records, supported by The Ricard Foundation
24th - 28th Oct 1969 - 60 Hours of Music - 60 Francs
Introduced by Frank Zappa & Pierre Lattes
Friday Night: 24th Oct
Pop Music
- Ten Years After
- Colosseum
- Aynsley Dunbar's Retaliation
- Alan Jack Civilization
Free Jazz
- Art Ensemble Of Chicago
- Sunny Murray
- Burton Greene
- 360 Degree Music Experience
New Music
- Free Music Group
Saturday Night: 25th Oct
Pop Music
- Pink Floyd
- Freedom
- Keith Relf's Rennaisance
- Alexis Korner & The New Church
- Blues Convention
Free Jazz
- Grachan Moncur lll
- Arthur Jones
- Jochim Kuhn
- Don Cherry
Onstage at Amougies, Tuesday 28th Oct, 1969
Sunday Afternoon: 26th Oct
French Pop Groups
- Martin Circus
- Alan Jack Civilization
- Triangle
- We Free
- Cruciferius
- Indescriptable Chaos Rampant
- (Interim Spectacle:
Max Auer & Claudia Saumade)
Amplification by Standel
Environmental Direction: Jacques Cherix
Coordination: Brigette Guichard
Sunday Night: 26th Oct
Pop Music
- The Nice
- Caravan
Zappa, (Roger Waters & Nick Mason)
Onstage at Amougies, Saturday 25th Oct, 1969 - Blossom Toes
- Ame Son
Free Jazz
- Archie Shepp
- Kenneth Terroade
- Anthony Braxton
New Music
- Germ (P Marietan)
Monday Night: 27th Oct
Pop Music
- Yes
- Pretty Things
- Chicken Shack
- Sam Apple Pie
- Frogeaters
- Daevid Allen Group
- Keith Tippett Group
Free Jazz
Archie Shepp, 'Philly Joe' Jones, Earl Freeman, Louis Maholo, John Dyani and Grachan Moncur lll
Photo: Jacques Bisceglia (BYG) for Downbeat
- Pharoah Sanders
- Dave Burrell
- John Surman
- Clifford Thornton
- Sonny Sharrock
New Music
- Acting Trio
Tuesday Night: 28th Oct
Pop Music
- Soft Machine
- Captain Beefheart
- East Of Eden
- Fat Mattress
- Zoo
Free Jazz
- Alan Silva
- Robin Kenyatta
- Chris MacGregor
- Steve Lacy
- Dave Burrell Big Band
New Music
- Musica Elettronica Viva
